Posts Tagged ‘Russ Permenter’

Over the last two or three weeks there had been rumors on campus that both Jonnie Lacy and Russ Permenter were going to be playing the rest of their college basketball elsewhere. We were reluctant to report, because as we said they were just rumors, but now Kevin McNamara at the ProJo has confirmed that Russ and Johnnie will be leaving the team. Russ and Jonnie will join Kyle Wright who will also not be returning next. year. It is unclear on where either player intends on transferring. Their departure will leave open two additional scholarships for next season, but it is unlikely that Coach Keno will use both of them. Lacy’s departure leaves the team with only one true point guard, which Kevin McNamara has said might be filled by Darion Anderson, who is set to graduate from Northern Illinois this year, but still has one year of eligibility left. Anderson is 6’2″ and 23 years old. Even with him the Friars would only have 11 scholarship players on the team next year, as they would be saving other scholarships for future classes.

First is Russ. We doubt that the Russ transfer will be noticed too much. With the all the holes left to fill by the Weyinmi team’s graduation he was more of a filler player. A bigger player to help out Bilal… and the freshman James Still and Kadeem Batts. As we all know though, Russ didn’t really work out. He had limited minutes where he was largely ineffective on offense and picked up fouls quickly. He didn’t seem to have the toughness as other bigs in the BIG EAST, which hurt especially because he didn’t have great size as a big either. In his defense, we could only imagine how difficult the transition from JUCO to the BIG EAST is. Yes, other players have been very successful in it, but there are plenty who haven’t. Also we always wondered how much Russ liked Providence. For those who knew Russ around campus it was clear that he was a Texas man. While we have players from very different parts of the country, we think the Texas/New England transition may be a little difficult on some. But all that is just opinion. Although Russ didn’t work out here at PC, we wish him all the best luck in wherever he lands. His facebook status recently had information about Lubbock, Texas. As we are sure most of you know Lubbock is home to Texas Tech. So who knows maybe Russ will land there. It’s D1 and it’s in Texas. But in all seriousness, good luck to Russ in the future.

Now on to Johnnie Lacy. This one is definitely worse than the Russ transfer. Most immediately it leaves us with only one true point guard for next season. We have seenpoint guard by committee and point forwards and all those things in the past, and they just don’t work out as well. Yes, there is Duke Mondy to relieve Vincent Council at times, but we weren’t huge fans of Jeff Xavier acting as point, and no offense to Duke, but we think he is much better suited as an off guard like Jeff was. We don’t know too much about the guy Keven McNamara mentioned but we will look into him. We are disappointed that things didn’t work out for Johnnie Lacy. He came into Providence as a solid recruit, and was even one of ESPN’s freshman to watch in the BIG EAST. We thought, and still think that he has a ton of potential, but just wasn’t able to get things going. A large part of that was that Sharaud was the main man, and Vincent Council emerged as the best frosh on the team and one of the best in the BIG EAST. But we thought that in this upcoming year, with Sharuad gone, and no new point guards coming in that Lacy would get some time and momentum and put together a good season. However, with the signing of Naadir Tharpe, we think Lacy saw the writing on the wall and realized that while next year might be better, we was soon going to be the third point guard on the depth chart. So we can’t really blame him for wanting to find more playing time, but we are disappointed that things didn’t work out with him, because we though he was going to be a big part of the teams future. But like Russ, we wish Johnnie luck in his future. We have no idea if he will head back to Milwaukee or where he will wind up landing, but we will keep you updated. In the meantime we thank him for his year with the Friars, we will try to keep track of him in the future, and we wish him well.

We are a little confused by this. The semester ended a while ago and it seems strange that he would be doing work now, but it is possible, especially since Russ transferred in, that he came into PC academically behind and is taking winter session courses to get himself on track. Either way we wish Russ good luck with his school work.

There is a chance that this is nothing. Maybe Russ was sick, or had personal issues to attend to, but there is a good chance that he is out. He got limited minutes in the Notre Dame game and has not seen action since. Reason to be upset for sure. Playing behind two freshman usually doesn’t make somebody too happy either. In his radio show, Coach Keno said that Russ’ playing time was a reflection of his practice play. So putting everything together, the chances are that Russ is out. And if that is the case we wish him only the best of luck, but we will save our goodbyes for if and when that becomes official.

If Russ has left Providence a scholarship has opened up for the high school class of 2010. Not to be insensitive toward Russ, but for those who listened in on the most recent Keno Davis Radio show, Coach Keno hinted that Friar fans might be happy in the very near future with recruiting. Now of course the ”near future” can mean all different things and the recruitment might be from someone in the class of 2011. But let’s just say that it is someone who is a senior now. Who would it be? We have no idea, but Providence has had their eye on the younger brother of Atlanta Hawk Al Horford, Jon Horford, who has an ESPN scout rating of 92. The 6’9″ senior from Michigan is a good low post scorer and works hard on the boards. He is getting looks from SEC school, Alabama, and Big 10 schools, Minnesota and Michigan. Michigan would seem to be in the lead, but maybe the BIG EAST could draw him to Providence. Of course this is all gross speculation, but it does seem that he could be a good fit, and Providence has been able to pull a few players out of the midwest recently.

We are getting way ahead of ourselves though. We will see how everything plays out with Russ.